Amherst College - african americanshttps://www.amherst.edu/taxonomy/term/4498
enFlags of Our Fathershttps://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/issues/summer2012/collegerow/flags/node/430205
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><span class="fine-print">By William Sweet</span><br><br><span class="drop-cap2"></span></p>
<div class="mediainline table-align-right-gradient"><span class="inline"><br></span></div>
<p><span class="drop-cap2">R</span>obert Romer ’52 knows what an odd thing it is to be a historian. It may lead you to stroll in a cemetery, looking for people you never knew, as if they were old friends. In Romer’s case, a cemetery stroll inspired him to correct an inadvertent slight against some black soldiers from the Town of Amherst who fought in the Civil War.</p>
<p>“I happened to be walking through West Cemetery on the day before Memorial Day in 2011,” says Romer, professor emeritus of physics, “and I was looking forward to seeing flags next to the graves of the town’s black Civil War veterans.” Surprised to find no flags, he bought some at A.J. Hastings and returned to mark the graves.</p>
<div class="mediainline"><span class="inline"><img src="/media/view/430373/original/151190120.jpg" alt="151190120" title="151190120" style="display:block;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;" class="image original" height="233" width="350"></span></div>
<div class="mediainline fine-print" style="text-align:center;"><span class="inline">Now that he’s brought attention to local African Americans who served in the Civil War,<br>Professor Romer is researching students and alumni who were white officers in black<br>Union regiments.</span></div>
<p>The Amherst cemetery is the final resting place of at least five black men who fought for the Union: Charles Finnemore, of the 54th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry; Genalvin Marse, of the Connecticut 29th Colored Regiment; Christopher Thompson and his son Charles, both of the Massachusetts 5th Cavalry; and John Thompson, also of the Massachusetts 5th Cavalry. Marse and Charles Thompson were janitors at Amherst.</p>
<p>Romer is quick to point out that the town, in forgetting to place the flags, made an innocent, unintentional mistake. But he was not content with merely fixing the oversight; he set out to bring greater attention to the 20 black men from Amherst who served the Union. He met with the local veterans’ agent to make sure the graves will not be overlooked again. He also installed a temporary marker next to the hitherto unmarked grave of one of the soldiers, and the town has renewed an effort to identify the unmarked graves of other black soldiers who may be buried in the cemetery. Together with town officials, he organized a memorial ceremony last fall that drew many descendants of the town’s black soldiers.</p>
<p>Romer’s effort to honor the soldiers, which helped earn him a 2012 Conch Shell Award from the Amherst Historical Society, is just one phase of a journey that started more than a decade ago, when he learned that early residents of the Pioneer Valley owned slaves. (The Summer 2010 Amherst magazine includes a review of his 2009 book, <em>Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts</em>.)</p>
<p>And Romer is not done with the Civil War. He is now delving into the Amherst College archives to learn about students and alumni (he’s found 23 so far) who were white officers in black regiments, in the fashion of Harvard’s Col. Robert Gould Shaw, commander of the Massachusetts 54th, portrayed by Matthew Broderick in the 1989 film <em>Glory</em>.</p>
<p>“With almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors [in the Union Army and Navy], that would mean about 9,000 <br>officers,” Romer says, “and they couldn’t all have gone to Harvard.”</p>
<p><span class="fine-print">Photo by Rob Mattson</span></p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/28">black</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1254">town of Amherst</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/3842">civil war</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/4498">african americans</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/11099">Robert Romer</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/12188">Robert Romer &#039;52</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/13458">Romer</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/16884">soldiers</a></div></div></div><ul class="links inline"><li class="sharethis first last"><a href="/sharethis-ajax/430205" class="mm-sharethis">Share</a></li>
</ul>Thu, 30 Aug 2012 20:18:02 +0000kdduke430205 at https://www.amherst.eduhttps://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/issues/summer2012/collegerow/flags/node/430205#commentsWork in Progresshttps://www.amherst.edu/amherst-story/magazine/issues/2012spring/workinprogress/node/398523
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><span class="fine-print">By William Sweet</span></p>
<p class="image-align-left"><img src="/media/view/398127/original/150210130.jpg" alt="150210130" title="150210130" width="267" height="400"></p>
<p><span class="drop-cap">A</span> self-described “military brat,” Khary Polk spent much of his childhood as an African-American living abroad. That experience, says the Robert E. Keiter 1957 Postdoctoral Fellow and visiting assistant professor of black studies, is helping to inform his current research on the role of black soldiers in the civil rights movement.</p>
<p>“The movement of black soldiers and black people in the United States has always been so surveilled and so restricted,” says Polk, who is now writing a book on the topic. (It was also the subject of his recent New York University doctoral dissertation.) While some portray the racial integration of the U.S. military as an outcome of the civil rights movement, Polk argues that the influence often went in the other direction.</p>
<p>“Even though many soldiers were still dealing with the prejudice of the U.S. military, being outside the boundary of the United States created a new sense of possibility that, I think, really changed the outlook of many African-Americans,” he says, ultimately resulting in improved rights for civilians and soldiers.</p>
<p>For example, lawyer Charles Hamilton Houston, a 1915 Amherst graduate, served in World War I and went on to mentor African-American jurists—such as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall—who would join him in laying the legal groundwork for the 1954 Supreme Court decision that banned racial segregation in public schools. Another Amherst alumnus, William H. Hastie ’25, was instrumental in advocating for African-American soldiers in World War II.</p>
<p>Indeed, black soldiers affected the world both culturally (they introduced ragtime music to Europe) and politically: As Polk argues, interactions between American blacks and their counterparts in Africa played a role in the rise of the anti-colonial movement.</p>
<p>“Civil rights,” says Polk, “have had this hidden connection to the U.S. military for such a long time.” </p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1431">Black Studies</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1531">military</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/4498">african americans</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/7505">Integration</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/7765">work in progress</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/16882">Polk</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/16883">Khary Polk</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/16884">soldiers</a></div></div></div><ul class="links inline"><li class="sharethis first last"><a href="/sharethis-ajax/398523" class="mm-sharethis">Share</a></li>
</ul>Wed, 30 May 2012 20:11:00 +0000kdduke398523 at https://www.amherst.eduThe Impact of Black Soldiers and Amherst College on the Civil Rights Movementhttps://www.amherst.edu/news/archives/faculty/node/381445
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><em><span class="drop-cap1 drop-cap2">K</span>hary Polk, the Robert E. Keiter 1957 Postdoctoral Fellow and visiting assistant professor of black studies at Amherst completed his doctoral dissertation on the African-American soldier at New York University last summer and is currently adapting the dissertation into book form. We recently spoke with Polk about the upcoming work, which he said will examine “how discourses of race and sexuality intersected within the figure of the African American soldier in the 20</em><em><sup>th</sup></em><em> century, and how black soldiers, in particular, found senses of embattled agency through their military travels outside of the United States.”<!--break--></em></p>
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<div class="mediainline" style="text-align:center;"><span class="inline">Dr. Khary Polk</span></div>
<div class="mediainline" style="text-align:center;"><span class="inline"><br></span></div>
<h3>Audio Extra: more observations from our discussion with Khary Polk</h3>
<p>On James Baldwin in the Pioneer Valley</p>
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<p>Treatment of Black Soldiers in World War I</p>
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<p>The Importance of Colin Powell</p>
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<p>On the Military and Academia</p>
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</tr></tbody></table><p><em>While the racial integration of the U.S. military is sometimes presented as an outcome of the civil rights movement, Polk argues that in many ways it was the black American soldier who fought on the front lines for equality, to bring home the freedom he was sworn to protect. Along the way in his research, Polk uncovered Amherst's connections to the civil rights movement in the military and beyond.</em></p>
<p><strong>Q: Your father was in the Air Force. How has coming from a military family informed your research?</strong></p>
<p>A: I started this project thinking, What did it mean for my family, before I was born, to be stationed in Spain? Once I was born, we moved to England, and then Okinawa. I've been interested in thinking about how movement contributes to a literature of African-Americans abroad and how the U.S. military has its own engine of Diaspora. The movement of black soldiers and black people in the United States has always been so surveilled and so restricted. My family's history informs how I think about the possibilities of freedom that many Americans exercise today.</p>
<p><strong>Q: Do you think military life radicalized black soldiers in the 20<sup>th</sup> century?</strong></p>
<p>A: One of the major themes that I identified has been how freedom is articulated through movement. During World War II, black soldiers were literally going all over the world. They're going to Southeast Asia, to India, to Europe, to the Caribbean. Even though many soldiers were still dealing with the prejudice of the U.S. military, being outside the boundary of the United States created a new sense of possibility that, I think, really changed the outlook of many African-Americans. When they returned to the United States, those perspectives infused their communities with a different sense of being.</p>
<p><strong>Q: Tell us about the two Amherst College graduates that you discuss in your research.</strong></p>
<p class="Standard">A: I think the most notable … is Charles Hamilton Houston. He came to Amherst in 1911—I believe he may have been the only black student in his class—and graduated as one of six valedictorians in 1915. He decided to join up during World War I. He saw, and he was subject to, the kind of discrimination that black soldiers faced in France.</p>
<p class="Standard">In many ways, it was that experience that led him to come back to the States and to go to law school. He went to Harvard, and he later became assistant dean at Howard University and their law school, and he himself was responsible for mentoring scores of African-American legal minds , probably the most notable being Thurgood Marshall [U.S. Supreme Court justice from 1967 to 1991]. [Houston and his protégés, such as Marshall, would lay the legal groundwork that would eventually make possible the 1954 Supreme Court decision <em>Brown v. Board of Education</em>, which declared racial segregation in public primary and secondary schools unconstitutional.]</p>
<p class="Standard"><strong>Q: You mentioned a second Amherst graduate important in this history.</strong></p>
<p class="Standard">A: William Hastie [‘25] was very instrumental in advocating for African-American soldiers in World War II. I think that it's important that we don't forget these kinds of contributions from Amherst College graduates have gone on to truly change the shape of our world.</p>
<p class="Standard">[Hastie graduated first in his class, <em>magna cum laude</em>. Like Houston, he would also later teach law at Howard University. He would eventually become the first African-American to serve as Governor of the United States Virgin Islands, as a federal judge and as a federal appellate judge.]</p>
<p class="Standard"><strong>Q: What kind of impact did these black soldiers have on the world?</strong></p>
<p class="Standard">A: They inspired the people, and they themselves were also inspired. A group that was really important in that inspiration was the 369th Harlem Hell-fighters, which was a jazz band started by James Reese Europe… a notable black conductor in Harlem. … They are seen as bringing ragtime to France. They produced a rag version of “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem.. It took a number of measures before the French sailors knew what was being played and then everyone snapped to attention. In France, the people loved them so much.</p>
<p class="Standard"><strong>Q: Did this movement of soldiers have an impact on blacks native to other countries?</strong></p>
<p class="Standard">A: I’m very interested in the kind of interactions that black soldiers had with French colonial soldiers from Africa. Just imagine what it meant for African-American soldiers to encounter these other people who were black but spoke another language. When they went back home to their respective countries, they became a radical element. Some scholars believe the anti-colonial movement actually begins with the drawdown during World War II. In the Belgian Congo they actually asked [black U.S. soldiers] to leave, because their presence was destabilizing the caste system there.</p>
<table class="table-align-right-gradient" border="0" cellpadding="10"><tbody><tr><td>
<div class="mediainline"><span class="inline"><img src="/media/view/381892/original/2011_11_17_RM_DrKharyPolk_AR_267x400_129.jpg" alt="Dr. Khary Polk" title="Dr. Khary Polk" class="image original" width="267" height="400"></span></div>
<div class="mediainline" style="text-align:center;">Dr. Khary Polk</div>
</td>
</tr></tbody></table><p class="Standard"><strong>Q: So they were essentially on the front line of a P.R. campaign for civil rights?</strong></p>
<p class="Standard">A: Toward World War II and beyond, the presence of black [American] soldiers in other countries began to serve a diplomatic need. There was so much propaganda being tossed on both sides from the Axis and the Allies, and a sore spot diplomatically for America was the treatment of African-Americans at home. There was this notion of the Double V Campaign: victory against fascism abroad and at home.</p>
<p class="Standard">The performance of black soldiers in the field really began to create the conditions for a greater ability for them to serve. But it turns the African-American soldier into a subject over whose meaning there's lots of negotiation and sometimes a fierce struggle. And often, in these moments, their voices are lost.</p>
<p class="Standard">We learn from the experiences the black soldiers gained through international travel. What does it tell us about Diaspora? About the global and the local? About power? Civil rights have had this hidden connection to the U.S. military for such a long time. And it's been a fraught relationship.</p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/28">black</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1431">Black Studies</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/1531">military</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/4081">civil rights movement</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/4498">african americans</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/11734">World War II</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/13189">World War I</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/14891">diaspora</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/16882">Polk</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/16883">Khary Polk</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/16884">soldiers</a></div></div></div><ul class="links inline"><li class="sharethis first last"><a href="/sharethis-ajax/381445" class="mm-sharethis">Share</a></li>
</ul>Mon, 27 Feb 2012 17:15:00 +0000wsweet381445 at https://www.amherst.eduAmherst College Seniors Set Lecture on African Americans in Art April 5https://www.amherst.edu/news/news_releases/2002/mar_20002/node/10876
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"> <!-- START CONTENT --> <span class="fine-print">March 13, 2002<br> Director of Media Relations<br> 413/542-8417</span><p> AMHERST, Mass.-Lisa Friscia, David Holland and Dominique Kaschak, seniors at Amherst College, will present an illustrated lecture entitled “Entranced by the Love of Melody: Musical Iconography and Caricature in Representations of African Americans,” on Friday, April 5, at 4:30 p.m. in Stirn Auditorium. Presented in conjunction with Black Alumni Weekend, the talk will be followed by a reception in the Mead Art Museum. Both events are free and open to the public. </p><p> The students will discuss how African Americans were represented in19th-century American genre painting, early American film, and photography from the Harlem Renaissance. Some works, produced between 1830 and 1930, portrayed African Americans with great dignity, while others relied on the stereotypes prevalent at the time. Using works from both outside sources and the collection at the Mead, the lecture will address issues of audience, agency, inclusion and exclusion.</p><p> Friscia, from Brooklyn, NY is majoring in American studies and economics. Holland, from Richmond, VA., is an Asian languages and civilizations and economics major. Kaschak is a sociology and French major from Bethesda, MD. They organized this talk through the Department of Fine Arts as part of a special topics course in “African-American Representations.” </p><p> This event is sponsored by the Mead Art Museum, the Associates of Fine Arts and the Alumni Office. The Mead Art Museum hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Thursday evenings until 9 p.m. Closed Mondays and holidays. More information can be found on <a href="http://www.amherst.edu/%7Emead">the Museum’s Website</a> or by calling the Mead Art Museum at 413/542-2335. </p><p align="center"> ###</p></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-taxonomy-vocabulary-1 field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/552">news releases</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/4493">lisa friscia</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/4494">david holland</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/4495">dominique kaschak</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/4496">illustrated lecture</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/4497">entranced by the love of melody</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/taxonomy/term/4498">african americans</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/taxonomy/term/4499">black alumni weekend</a></div></div></div>Wed, 11 Jul 2007 19:32:14 +0000emaradzike1010876 at https://www.amherst.edu